From Songs of Erinn by Patrick Joseph McCall (London: Simpkin Marshall & Co., 1899), page 50:


THE YELLOW BITTERN.

This song, which was sung in Gaelic by Mr. Roy of Donegal, at the Féis Ceóil in Belfast, 1898, and for the singing of which he was awarded a prize, was composed by Cathal Buidhe, an itinerant bard who lived at the beginning of the last century. During a very severe winter, when even the rivers were frozen over, the famished poet came to a rock whereon lay a bittern (Buinneán Buidhe, a kind of heron) stretched out dead. The unfortunate bird had actually died of thirst, and the bard, seeing a resemblance to his own approaching end, wrote the following song.

1. Oh, Buinneán Buidhe,* 'tis my grief and sorrow
To see you stark on the stones below;
Now wine from water, this wintry morrow
Poor bird o' the marsh, you would not know.
No draught for you ran with the river,
As by its border you gasped for breath;
'Twill be soon my case—I have no kind giver
Of a cup to stay the hand of Death.

2. Not a bird that flies in the blue I pity,
The blackbird, lark, or grey-winged crane;
'Tis for you alone that I pour this ditty,
A song from a heart grown dark with pain.
But, oh, had I known by word or token,
You were under woe, I had quickly hied,
And the ice on Loch MacNean had broken,
And brought you life from its frozen tide.

3. 'Tis years ago, my own fair lover
Forewarned me of death in the flowing bowl;
But I said, my dear, the wide world over
As often it saves the sinking soul.
And, girl of the gold hair, ring'd and curl'd,
Not he who frowns on the cup of doom,
Nor the merry heart that would drink the world,
Can get one drop in the icy tomb.

4. I loved this maid of the clust'ring curls,
The sweetest one on this earthly sphere,
But the chosen queen of a thousand girls
Left the wandering bard forsaken here.
'Tis my bitter grief that I was not taken
To God, the day of my christening morn,
Ere the whispering maidens their heads had shaken
At the witless boy she left forlorn.

5. One day, foot weary and bruised and broken,
I passed and saw her beside her door;
And I prayed in vain for a kind word spoken,
And a kiss, till I drank her health once more.
Twas my daily moan for many a morrow,
I am withered now, and we are not wed,
And shall never be; yet, I pray that sorrow,
Avourneen O! may spare your head.


* Pronounced Bwin'yaun Bwee.